Main menu

Tag Archives: Zirconia

We’ve gotten a few updates about the upcoming Sailor Moon musical, Amour Eternal, recently. The latest is an image of Helios, Nehelenia, Zirconia and the Amazon Trio which was posted to the official Sailor Moon site. We’ve also gotten a look at the Sailor Guardians, old and new, in their uniforms in some images and a commercial which is included below:

We had previously learned who all of these actors were going to be but this is the first time we see them in costume. What do you think?

There has also been a cast change, which was mentioned in our last update, where Hikari Kuroki who was originally cast as Sailor Mercury was replaced by Yume Takeuchi. This was said to have simply been because of “cast circumstances” without specifics. I’ve learned some details about what may have prompted this. She posted on Twitter that she was leaving because of complaints. Some believe she may have been removed from her role for having posed as a gravure model in the past, which means that she did modeling in clothing such as revealing swimsuits. I also saw comments suggesting she had changed her name since then. I do not know the exact nature of all of her previous works so I can not comment on the specifics, but it seems unfortunate for something like this and the public shaming that ensued to have caused problems with her career. Many other actors who have been affiliated with various incarnations of Sailor Moon have done this type of work so it’s hard to say if this is the actual reason for her leaving and we will likely not be getting anything in the way of official confirmation if this is the case. Some details about this come from an article from Yahoo Japan. You can read a translation of this and her tweet on the Ai No Message Tumblr page.

This musical, which covers the Dream arc of the manga, will be playing in Japan in October and November of this year.

An update has been posted to the official Sailor Moon site which reveals the name of the latest musical, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Amour Eternal, as well as a complete cast listing. The new musical has been confirmed to be covering the Dream arc of the manga, adapted as Sailor Moon SuperS in the original Sailor Moon anime. This title is just the worst! Amour, as most probably know, is the French word for love. Eternal however is not French at all. It’s a full on English word. What the hell? Why not Amour éternel, which would actually be proper French? Are we supposed to pronounce it in French? It just sounds gross to say Amour Eternal. It’s just bastardizing two languages. It’s gross. The last two musicals all had fully French names. Is this supposed to be a misspelled French word or is this intentionally terribly mismatched English and French words? This is just bad and it will not stop bothering me and I will probably not be able to avoid mentioning how terribly stupid it is at least once in any post referencing this musical. This offends me as both and English and French speaking person and it should bother you too.

This title will just lead to more confusion on what the name means. Amour éternel would translate roughly to everlasting love or eternal love. I guess eternal is more the word we’re going for since it’s the actual English word in the horrible title.

Some newcomers and some repeat performances here. Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus are all new actors, as we’ve seen announced previously. We already saw that Yuga Yamato would return as Tuxedo Mask. Shuu Shiotsuki, Sayaka Fujioka, Mikako Ishii and Karin Takahashi will be reprising their roles as Sailor Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Saturn. Airi Kanda will also be returning as Chibiusa. Riona Tatemichi, who previously played Rubeus in the Petite Étrangère musical, will be playing Hawk’s Eye. The rest of the cast are newcomers to the musicals, as those characters have no appeared before.

We previously reported that Hikari Kuroki would play Ami Mizuno, Sailor Mercury. This role is now credited as Yume Takeuchi. I don’t know what prompted this change in casting, but this replacement was posted as a separate update on the Sailor Moon official site on the same day as this updated cast listing was shared.

This week on Sailor Moon SuperS we are introduced to the Amazoness Quartet as episodes 150 and 151 are added to Hulu and Neon Alley. First the Dead Moon Circus, which arrived in town over 20 episodes ago, arrives in town? and then Ami has an Internet romance with a young musician.

Episode 150, The Amazoness: Nightmare from Behind the Mirrors, introduces us to the Amazoness Quartet. Last week I mentioned that not much had happened this season and this episode reminds us of that. There is a circus in town! The Dead Moon Circus. That damned tent showed up out of nowhere during the eclipse in episode 128 and we’re only now getting around to addressing it? Nehelenia, this season’s main villain, is seen only briefly in a mirror at the beginning of this episode. Better late than never! I am kind of joking when I say that nothing has happened yet this season, but the Korean dub actually skipped everything up to this episode and just had to insert something about the Super transformations into the fight to make it all make sense. Anyway, the Amazoness Quartet are kind of cool. CereCere, VesVes, JunJun and PallaPalla are terribly behaved young girls. They not only argue with Zirconia but CereCere tries to actually fight her, which only ends because Zirconia turns out to be more powerful. As villains they are less objectionable than sleazy pick up artists and seem to fit with the whole circus theme more as they do acrobatics. The target this week is Momoko. Again. But there isn’t much focus on her as she just sort of tags along with the gang to go to the circus. The Amazoness Quartet aren’t quite as invasive in getting the Mirror of Dreams from their targets as they do so by knocking a pool ball into them, usually after doing some sort of elaborate trick shot. The episode closes with the Amazoness Quartet getting massaged which is a testament to their slacker attitudes.

Episode 151, True Power Explodes: Ami’s Melody of the Heart, is the episode where we see Ami naked. Ami was chilling on the Internet before it was cool! Remember that this episode was released nearly 20 years ago, in November of 1995. The Internet wasn’t what it is today back then. Ami is downloading music on a computer network almost 4 years before Napster! She downloaded some music by user N. T. and is so into him that she’s writing poetry inspired by his music. Ami meets up with N. T. who is actually Toshiyuki Nishino, a young piano player who, much to Ami’s disappointment, has a girlfriend named Kyouko! Note that the initials N. T. apply because in Japanese the family name comes before the given name when stated, so he would be Nishino Toshiyuki. Then we get into this whole Ami powering up to Sailor Mercury thing. During the fight we cut to a scene with a fully naked Ami which should make some fans happy. She talks to Sailor Mercury, which is odd since Ami and Sailor Mercury are never before shown as being different people, and this causes her to do some kind of awakening. Why are we doing this? Pegasus powered everyone up a bunch of episodes ago. Now we are making every character do some sort of episode centred on them so that they can embrace their new powers. Another sign that we could have completely skipped the first half of the season and just started with episode 150 and using these sort of special episodes as reasons to power everyone up one at a time. Perhaps Ami just talks to herself because she has no family, as we learn briefly about her dead beat father who isn’t around and sends her a painting.

Support this site by buying the first two seasons of Sailor Moon on DVD and Blu-Ray using the links below.